Dr Hiroyuki Kitaura
Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow, Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures

About the Talk

The 1950s was a period called ‘the golden age of Japanese films’. Japanese film-makers won a string of awards, starting with Kurosawa Akira’s Rashomon, which received the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival, and followed by Mizoguchi Kenji’s successive prizes at Venice from 1952 through 1954 with The Life of Oharu, Ugetsu and Sansho the Bailiff. At the same time, domestic film audiences were increasing year on year. At the peak, in 1958, the number of film tickets sold was 1.12 billion, but this turned out to be the last year of growth, and five years later, in 1963, the number had sharply dropped to less than half, at 510 million. Dr Kitaura would like to reconsider the situation of Japanese films which went from the golden age to decline.

About the Speaker

Hiroyuki Kitaura is Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, where he looks into the history of overseas development and acceptance of Japanese films and Anime. He is the author of 『テレビ成長期の日本映画 － メディア間交渉の中のドラマ』名古屋大学出版会、2018 年 (Japanese Movies during the Growth Period of Television: the Dramas in Media Interactions) and has written extensively in the area of Japanese film and television history.

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